Event Teaser - from the Turbine Site, December 16, 2005

The Map Room in the palace of Queen Elysa Strathelar was secured with a pair of massive oak doors, barred against unwanted interruptions. Flanking the doors were a pair of massive soldiers, among the elite of the Queen's forces. They stood at attention, keeping a silent lookout, alert for the miniscule chance that some hostile intruder would be able to get past the outer defenses of the royal palace and threaten the privacy and confidentiality of the Queen's deliberations.

The guards were used to hearing the muffled traces of loud arguments behind the thick doors. It seemed that, in times of a crisis in the realm, the Queen's councilors became more likely to shout at each other during these secret meetings. The guards could even tell the councilors by the sounds of their voices. They could never hear specifics of the conversations, aside from a particularly loud and angry curse word, but they could almost piece together the course of a debate based on the pattern of raised voices.

The debate in the map room this day was different from past gatherings, however. The guards could only discern one voice raised in anger. It was a younger voice that had not often been heard in those chambers, and never with such rage behind it. This was the first time that the Map Room guards had overheard a Strathelar family argument.

* * * * *

"... and by doing nothing, we let everyone think we're just as weak as that monster Varicci says we are!"

Elysa sighed. They'd been arguing in the Map Room for almost an hour. A simple geography review had turned into an emotional and not entirely rational debate. This was the third time that Borelean had used that argument against her. Did he think she'd failed to hear him the first two times?

"What would you have me do, my son?" she asked.

Borelean gestured at the map of the realm that covered the surface of the table. "Launch an attack on one of Varicci's holdings! Retake Fort Tethana, or Marae Lassel... Just stand up for our people, mother! Don't let the Viamontians think they can take over any town they like! Don't let Antius die in vain..." He stopped talking then, quieted by a fresh surge of grief for his fallen mentor.

"Has it occurred to you, son, that the rush to confront the Viamontians in a battle of their choosing led Antius to his death? I did not ask him to go to Glenden Wood."

"It has occurred to me, mother, that Antius was the only one that people saw defending them against Varicci's monsters, and he died, alone, at the hands of a battle commander whose loyalty you lost!"

"Do not throw Kurth in my face again, Borelean. I acknowledge that I made a grave error in failing to support Kurth-"

"And you made the same error with Antius!" Borelean sprang out of his seat this time, towering over his seated mother.

Elysa stood up as well, to match angry glares with her son. Though he was still an adolescent and not yet grown into his full height, he was as tall as she was, and he seemed to draw some power from their matched heights. Summoning up her anger and the commanding presence that years of rule over an imperiled realm had taught her, she seemed to grow taller in her son's eyes as she let out some of her own emotion.

"Whatever weakness you think you see in me, my son, or whatever weakness you think our people see, you will still address me with respect as your Queen and as your mother. I have listened to what you have to say, and I say again that, until we know more of Varicci's true capabilities, we will not engage him in open battle! Not as long as there is some possibility that he has more of those terrible weapons. Varicci is trying to bait us into a full war! Antius will have died in vain if we refuse to take any lessons from what happened to him!"

Borelean sat back down, making a visible effort to master his emotions. Soon Elysa found herself staring across the table at a boy with a deceptively blank face, who seemed to be only vaguely aware of her presence in the room. After a long and uncomfortable silence, he looked at her and asked, "May I return to my chambers now, mother?"

She nodded for him to go, trying to keep her own composure. It took a lot of effort for her to keep her own pain and fear from showing through. As he stopped in front of the doors to raise the crossbar, she called out to him. "Borelean. My son."

He stopped at the door. He didn't turn to look at her, but he cocked his head to let her know he was listening. "Sometimes the true test of a leader's strength is in knowing when not to fight. No matter how much she wants to." It took more strength than she knew she had to keep her voice from breaking.

Borelean turned his head to look at her. His eyes were calm. His expression was no longer angry, but neither was there warmth in his gaze. "As you say, mother." He nodded slightly, then lifted the crossbar, pushed open the doors, and left.

Elysa watched him go. As soon as the doors shut behind her son, she cried quietly, her body shaking very slightly with sobs of grief.

* * * * *

Borelean slammed his bedroom door behind him. He took a long series of deep breaths to center himself. Then he picked up his sparring sword, went into the adjoining practice room, and began the exercises that Antius had taught him. He knew the movements so well he could do them in his sleep. He had become even more dedicated to his sword practice in the wake of Antius' death.

Halfway through his training session, he stopped suddenly, cutting short the follow-through on an overhand slash. He sensed he was no longer alone in the room. Scanning his surroundings quickly with alert and well-trained eyes, he located the intruder, in a corner behind him. He turned, dropped into a guard stance, and then just as quickly let his guard back down.

"Oh," he said, with some distaste, "it's you."

"It's me," the intruder agreed. "I take it the discussion with your mother went no better than yesterday's?"

Borelean shrugged. "It lasted longer and I made her more upset than I did yesterday. No, I did no better."

"She's a hard-headed woman. And hard-hearted, it seems. The realm cries for vengeance, and still she urges caution..."

"I'll not have you speaking so of my mother. It's bad enough that I even talk to you. And I know you're just trying to manipulate me. I shouldn't have gone back to her for another argument today. It's just making things worse."

"You're probably right," said the intruder. "Let's talk about ways to make things better. Did you do all that reading I told you to do?"

Borelean nodded. "Yes, but I had to sneak into the restricted wing of the library for some of the books you told me to read."

"Clever lad. Let's continue your education."

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Rollout Article - from the Turbine Site, December 20th, 2005

Count Dardante sat at his desk, pouring over a diagram of arcane sigils that had been copied from an ancient tomb by some of his assistants. He'd spent the last several days analyzing a sheaf of such tracings, and felt no closer to unlocking the mysteries they contained.

He put aside the papers, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion. There was a knock on his office door, and then the door swung slowly open. Dardante prepared a biting rebuke for whichever of his assistants intruded upon him without being called in – and then he noticed that the intruder was his King, Varicci II.

"Majesty... I had not expected you here at my remote outpost," Dardante said, trying to pull together his scattered thoughts.

"I didn't think you would expect me, Dardante. How goes the translation effort?"

Dardante grimaced. "It comes slowly, Majesty. The sigils bear superficial resemblance to some of the ones we found on the Dericostian tombs, but when we try to read the characters together, the language is gibberish... I think we have stumbled across yet another Empyrean sect, which uses a very similar alphabet."

Varicci snorted. "These Empyreans are even more fractious and troublesome than the Bloodless on Ispar." He tapped on Dardante's desk. "The real reason I have come is to bring you out of here. I would have you return to Sanamar for a time, to advise me on our current efforts in the Grael matter."

"Is there new information on that one?" Dardante asked.

"There is. It may, in fact, shed further light on the nature of the beast himself. The scholars who examined this latest set of artifacts are quite excited. They seem to have found themselves a firsthand account of Grael."

Dardante rose from his desk eagerly. "Say no more. True first-hand sources would be invaluable. We spent far too much time pursuing the false leads and ignorant theories we found among those benighted cultists."

With that said, Dardante rolled up the pages of arcane diagrams to take with him. He wanted to share them with the scholars in Sanamar again. He locked the rest of his notes in a chest behind his chair. With his office secured, he turned to accompany the King outside.

On their way to the courtyard of the fortified compound, another question occurred to Dardante. "Majesty, if I may ask, whatever became of those cultists we captured?"

"Most of them were given over to the Vivimancers for reshaping. We had wanted to keep them in captivity longer, in the unlikely chance that we would be able to extract some useful knowledge from them... But given some of our recent military setbacks, the need for shock troops overwhelmed that consideration. A few of the most thaumaturgically promising have been kept, in case we do decide we need to wring more secrets from them, or simply use them as experimental fodder."

Dardante nodded. "It would be a good to have a few on hand for some more severance experiments that I had in mind," he said. "If we can solve that problem without having to delve too deeply into the mysteries of Grael, I would consider the realm well served."

Varicci stopped to look at his most senior thaumaturgical advisor. "It is true that I am only interested in Grael so far as knowledge of him, or his power, would serve the war effort... But you, my friend? If we had our severance solution tomorrow, would you truly abandon your Grael research?"

Dardante smiled slowly as he turned to face his King. "No, Majesty. For my own interest, I want to know all there is to know about Grael."

Dev Notes - from the Turbine Site, December 20th, 2005

New Content and Functionality (Please note that this list does not include all of the content going in, such as quests.)

• The winter season is upon us. That means snow has fallen once again.
• Scarecrows and Pumpkin Golems have been removed from the landscape, and have been replaced with Snowmen.
• The Glenden Wood Orb can now be turned into and NPC for a scroll that will teach you the recall spell.
• The Town of Yanshi has finally been rebuilt. It is now located near the Old Yanshi Festival grounds. A memorial to Antius Blackmoor has also been placed outside the town, so that everyone may pay their respects to a fallen hero.
• The Invasion of Glenden Wood has been pushed back and the Guard Captains have now moved in and secured the town again. Make sure to speak with The NPC's in town to get all of the latest happenings in that area.
• Tusker Spit and Moarsmuck is now stackable.
• The Temples of Forgetfulness and Enlightenment have been revised. You can see how the new system works here.
• The shards that players collected when trying to help out Antius, will have a use this month.

Miscellaneous Chang es and Improvements

• The bug that caused players hotkeys to not be saved on logout has been fixed.
• Several small typos have been fixed
• The Scarecrow guise said in its description that it did not cover the head when it actually did. This is now fixed.
• Snowmen were facing the wrong direction in the examination panel. This has been fixed.

December Letter to the Players - from the Turbine Site, December 16, 2005

Greetings and welcome to the December Letter to the Players.

In the last month we saw King Varicci took his assault to the next level. Through some form of dark design, King Varicci was able to acquire and use a new type of weapon to kill Antius Blackmoor. What will Queen Elyssa's reaction to this be? Will she send out an immediate force to seek revenge? Or will she be too upset at the loss of someone so important to her?

New for December
After gathering feedback from the players, the changes to the Temples of Forgetfulness and Enlightenment have gone in this month. We feel these changes will help both new and old players make changes to their characters while also not allowing anyone to abuse the abilities granted by these temples. The following is a list of how the timers will be changed when you go to the temples after the December event goes live.

Untrain
1st-4th gems: Instant
5th-8th gems: 1 week timer
9th-16th gems: 2 week timer
17th and above: 3 week timer

Specialization
1st-2nd gems: Instant
3rd-4th gems: 1 week timer
5th-8th gems: 2 week timer
9th and above: 3 week timer

Attribute
1st-18th: Instant
19th-36th gems: 1 week timer
37th and above: 2 week timer

Also please note there is a 2 week timer on handing in any Tesserae.

The Hotkey issue that was causing players to lose their save hotkey selections has been resolved. The items that players put in the hotkey slots should now stay there after they log off.

Players will be able to turn in their Glenden Wood Recall Orb for a scroll of the same spell. This will allow players to still have the recall without having to have the orb which can cause players to get stuck in combat mode.

The winter season is here and once again snow has started to fall. This seasonal change also means that some creature spawns will change accordingly. Scarecrows and Pumpkin Golems have been removed from the landscape. Instead players will find an increasing amount of Snowmen spawning throughout the land.

With the death of Antius, the people of Dereth have realized that a change is in the air. This has prompted them to take action. The town of Yanshi has finally rebuilt and has been fortified. You can find the new town near the Yanshi festival grounds. There has also been a memorial built there for the great Antius Blackmoor. Deep below the memorial, Antius lays in his final resting place. The citizens of Dereth may still go and pay their respects if they already haven't done so.

The invasion of Glenden Wood appears to have been pushed back, thanks to the aid of the brave people of Dereth. The Royal Captains have now moved in and have secured the area. Though there are still reports of some Viamontian activities in the area. Speaking to Tomo Genza may yield more information on this.


In-Concept
These are some the game changes we are thinking about for the upcoming months in Asheron's Call. We cannot guarantee when- or even if – any of these changes will be added to the game, as scheduling and priorities can change. These changes are in addition to the new quests, dungeons, and items we'll be introducing in each monthly event. Your feedback on these topics is particularly valuable.

- PK/PKL Arenas(more details on these will be coming)
- Additional Allegiance Management Improvements
- Friends Panel
- Player-vs-Player Improvements
- Additional High level Hunting Areas
- Story Driven Loyalty Decisions

The items that are included in this section are just some of the things we are looking at for future changes. As time goes on this list will continue to change and expand. As always, all in-concept ideas are subject to change with scheduling and priority changes.
 

Producer's Letter - from the Turbine Site, January 11, 2006

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year as we enter 2006.  I think we've got a good year coming up ahead of us.  We have brought together a solid team that mixes crafty veterans with gutsy newcomers.  The team is back in the groove of monthly content development, and we have plans on the board for some intriguing new features.  We're in the middle of a rich storyline that mixes ancient lore and new arrivals, and promises to compel players to make meaningful decisions about their characters' true loyalties.  I think there's a great deal for Asheron's Call players to look forward to, and we the devs are happy to have the opportunity to continue to work on this well-loved game.

I know that there are a number of specific issues that people would like to know our future plans on, so let's get into those:

PvP Enhancements: 
PvP is a tricky issue.  I don't think it is a good idea to make changes that would radically alter the way PvP works, or PvP balance.  For every person who wants a dynamic changed, there are others who like the dynamic the way it is, and would be upset with any changes.  With that in mind, we do have plans for additional PvP content.  We have plans to give PvPs new things to fight over and new enhancements for PvP combat.  One of the most common complaints about PvP seems to be that it simply takes too long to resolve a fight, because of super-high-health templates and equipment.  One goal we are working on, and are debating solutions for, is to make PvP fights shorter and more exciting.  Whatever we do is going to be based on feedback from the dedicated PvP community, starting with my recent "Looking for PvP Feedback" post on the PvP board.

Storyline:
The Viamontian Conflict storyline is going forward full steam.  We've introduced new lore and killed off a major lore character.  There seems to be a strong sentiment to have this storyline lead to meaningful character decisions.  I agree that, in the midst of a story about civil war, characters should make hard choices.  We plan to continue with the theme of opposed quests that we had in Throne of Destiny, where you could choose to undertake quests for Sanamar or Silyun. 

New Features: 
Our development schedule gives us some amount of leeway to work on new gameplay features or enhancement to current features.  Each of these requires a good deal of work and testing, and often spread out over several months.  While I cannot talk about specific features, the kind of things we are discussing are along the lines of expanding existing systems or offering new twists to existing content.  We are not going alter the fundamental personality of the game, but add to existing elements to deepen or broaden the gameplay that is already available.  The proposals we have on the table are pretty exciting.  During the development of Throne of Destiny, we spent a lot of time overhauling the game engine, freeing us to do some things we were not able to do before.  You've already been told about the new Friends panel that's coming in January.  You can expect us to steadily add more great features like that in the months ahead.

High Level Concerns: 
I know a lot of people were looking forward to Land Control as a new way to enjoy high-level gameplay.  I was sad that we had to make the decision to shelve those plans, but the system just demanded too much tech and design work to realistically expect to be able to do it.  When we developed the "booster pack" plan to implement Land Control outside of the development of Throne of Destiny, the plan was to have one engineer and one designer work solely on Land Control for six months to a year. Unfortunately, our current resource planning does not allow us to properly focus on a project of that size.  We are very eager to improve the experience for our longest-running and most loyal players with content beyond high-level hunting grounds, and we have some intriguing proposals on how to do this.  However, we will have to continue to be careful about the way we manage our resources.

Advertising and New Players: 
Quite a few people on our message boards have expressed concern about the lack of advertising for Asheron's Call.  For reasons I'm sure you can appreciate, our marketing team is focused on other projects.   Our strategy for Asheron's Call is to rely on fan loyalty and word of mouth to grow the game.  You, the players, can help by getting your friends to join you in Dereth, or to encourage friends who have left Dereth to come back and check out all the great stuff we've added.  You've already been doing a great job with this.  New players are still signing up, and we've seen even more players coming back.  I realize people have had difficulty finding the game at their local store.  To help fix this, we are working on making Throne of Destiny available via download.

********

We stated a few months ago, when the decision was made to bring the team back to Boston, that we would have a smaller team and, as a consequence, the updates would be smaller.  This has not changed, but Turbine is still looking to grow the team a bit more.  It is difficult to find strong talent, and especially difficult to get people to come to Boston in the middle of winter.  I fully expect that, as we add talent, and as team members become accustomed to new roles, we will be able to create more content for our updates.  As you can imagine, it's not a quick process to ramp up to work on a game as complex and with as rich a development history as Asheron's Call.  In my time on the original Live team from 1999 to 2001, I was learning new skills until my last day.

I recognize that some of our players are dissatisfied with the size of the content updates and with the postponement or shelving of previously announced plans.  I can assure you that none of the decisions we made were made lightly.  I can also assure you that we are doing our best to keep improving this game with new and entertaining content.

I was pretty sure we were going to get some negative feedback on the statement about Land Control in Frelorn's January 4 update.  While the news was unwelcome, it was also honest information, and I hope that people will recognize the spirit of honesty that drove it.  I didn't want to make vague promises of future goodies, but to instead tell you, in a straightforward manner, what was going on.  I will continue to be as honest as I can, and to avoid making big promises that we won't be able to fulfill. 

As for our plans for Asheron's Call, I'll reiterate that there are no plans to turn off the servers.  We as a team are committed to continuing to develop our ongoing stories, provide entertaining content, and add cool features to the game.  We have some fun and exciting ideas that I think people will enjoy.

I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support and feedback.  Asheron's Call is a labor of love for every team member here.  We're excited about the future of the game, and we hope you are looking forward to questing and adventuring with us.